Mossflower (Redwall) Read online

  Foremole waved her to a place between himself and a grizzled old mole whose fur was completely grey.

  ‘Set ee by yurr, maid. This be Owd Dinny, t’other young rip’s granfer.’

  Old Dinny nodded and continued spooning honeyed oatmeal.

  Obviously the moles liked a good solid start to the day. There was a variety of cooked roots and tubers, most of which Columbine had never seen before. All of them tasted delicious, whether salted, sugared or dipped in honey and milk. (Some of the moles did all four.) The bread was wafer thin and tasted of almonds, small cakes patterned with buttercups were served warm. There were fluffy napkins and bowls of steaming rosewater to cleanse sticky paws. As Columbine nibbled at a rye biscuit and sipped fragrant mint tea, she could not help asking Foremole where all the huge deeper ’n’ ever pies and solid trencherfood the moles seemed to favour were.

  Foremole chuckled. He gestured at the table with a massive digging claw. ‘Ho urr, Combuliney. This yurr be on’y a loight brekkist for ’ee an’ yurr friends. We’m fancied it up a bit for ’ee. Moles be only eaten solid vittles at even toid when they’s ’ungered greatly.’

  Columbine nodded and smiled politely, trying to hide her amazement. ‘Oh I see, just a loight brekkist, er, light breakfast.’

  As Columbine ate, she remembered Gonff. If only he were here amid this friendly company with her! She mentally wagered with herself that he would know the name and taste of every dish (and probably be jokingly chided for having stolen many of them in bygone days). She pictured her mousethief jesting with everybody, imitating molespeech and singing ballads as he composed them.

  The young mousemaid heaved a sigh into her mint tea. It dissolved in a small cloud of fragrant steam. Where, oh where, was Gonff on this beautiful morning?

  It was nearly mid-morning when the ‘light breakfast’ reached its conclusion. Then, guarded and guided by the mole community, Columbine and her friends made their way back to Brockhall by a secret woodland route.

  Martin, Gonff and Dinny were wide awake by daybreak. They crouched in the small cave, eating breakfast as they watched a grey drizzly dawn. Packing the food away, the travellers stamped life back into their numbed paws. Surprisingly, Gonff was first to step outside.

  ‘Come on, mateys. It’ll brighten up by mid-morning. You wait and see – I’m a Prince of Predictors.’

  Striding out, they left the low hills behind, to face yet more flatlands. Wakened grouse whirred into the damp morning air at their approach.

  ‘Sala-manda-stron,

  Look where we’ve come from,

  Three of Mossflower’s best,

  Marching out upon our quest:

  Sala-manda-stron.’

  Scratch sighted the three dim forms through the layers of drizzling rain.

  ‘There they go. Come on, you two. I’ve got a feeling that today’s the day we catch ’em. Come on, move yourselves. The sooner it’s done, the quicker we’ll get back to Kotir. Aye, good solid food again, a long rest and maybe a bit of honour and glory.’

  ‘Huh, I’m soaked right through!’ Splitnose complained. ‘Me too,’ grumbled Blacktooth. ‘I never slept a wink again. Sitting out on top of a hill, miles from anywhere in the pouring rain, stiff all over, cold, hungry, shiver—’

  ‘Shuttup!’ Scratch interrupted bitterly. ‘Put a button on your drivelling lip. Look at me, I’m weary, saturated and starved, but do you hear me whimpering on about it all the time? Up on your paws and try to look like you’re the Queen’s soldiers from Kotir.’

  They trekked westward, pursuing the travellers.

  Splitnose was muttering as he kicked a pebble along in front of himself. ‘Honour and glory, huh. Cludd’ll get all that, and he can keep it, too. Now if it was honour cake and a mug of hot glory, that’d be a different thing.’

  ‘Honour cake and hot glory drink? Don’t talk such rubbish, soggy-head,’ Blacktooth laughed.

  ‘Soggyhead yourself, drippynose.’

  ‘Crinkleclaws!’

  ‘Greasyfur!’

  ‘Beetlebottom!’

  ‘Stow the gab and get marching, both of you!’ Scratch told them.

  True to Gonff’s prediction, the rain ceased. Above the plains the sun came out to watch fluffy clouds sailing about on the breeze across a lake of bright blue sky.

  Dinny sniffed the air, wiggling his claws. ‘Buharr, they’s watter nearby, likely a pond or tarn. May’ap us’ll catcher a liddlefish. Be gudd eaten, hurr.’

  Martin looked sideways at Gonff. ‘How does he know there’s water near? I can’t smell a thing.’

  The mousethief shrugged. ‘Neither can he, matey. Moles probably feel it through the earth with their digging claws.’

  Dinny nodded wisely. ‘O arr, us’ns do smell lots o’ things wi’ us claws.’

  Gonff winked at the warrior mouse. ‘That’s the nice thing about moles, they always have a sensible explanation which we can all understand.’

  The three friends laughed aloud. Dinny proved as good at predicting as Gonff. Midday found the travellers at the edge of a large pond. Bulrushes and reeds surrounded the margin, small water lilies budded on the surface. The glint of silver scales beneath the water promised good fishing. At first Martin was 10th to stop but, realizing the valuable addition a fish would make to their supplies, he called a halt. While his friends went about fishing, the warrior posted himself on guard to watch for their pursuers.

  Dinny sat on the edge of the bank, immersing his paws in the shallows with exclamations of delight.

  ‘Oo arr, oo bliss ’n’ joys. Hurr, this be the loif, Gonffen!’

  The mousethief had cast a line baited with a tiny red mudworm. In seconds it was snatched by a voracious stickleback. ‘Ha, look, matey,’ he called. ‘I’ve got a bite! Come to Gonff, old greedyguts.’

  Martin crept up behind them. He placed a paw gently on each of his friends’ shoulders as he whispered to them, ‘Ssshhh. Listen to me. We are in great danger. Don’t make a sound, if you value our lives!’

  23

  SKIPPER SAT INSIDE the curve of a big hollow log. He faced a slim grey otter, trying hard not to look where the strange creature’s tail had once been.

  ‘So then, Mask, how are you keeping, my brother?’ he asked.

  The Mask nibbled at some otter delicacies that his brother had thoughtfully brought along.

  ‘Oh I get by, Skip. Sometimes I’m a squirrel, sometimes a fox. Ha, I was even a half-grown badger for a while.’

  Skipper shook his head in amazement, gazing around the hollow log where the master of disguises lived alone. Many curious objects were carefully stowed there: make-believe tails, false ears, a selection of various whiskers.

  The Mask watched Skipper with his odd pale eyes. Seizing a few things, he turned his back and made some swift secret adjustments. When he turned around, Skipper’s mouth fell open in disbelief.

  ‘Look, Skip. I’m a squirrel again!’

  The otter chieftain marvelled; this creature in front of him was surely an aged squirrel – thin, greying, but undeniably a squirrel, from its bushy tail and erect ears, right to the two large front upper teeth.

  ‘Strike me tops’ls, Mask. How d’you do it?’

  ‘Oh it’s no great thing,’ the Mask chucked quietly. ‘Actually, I’d look more like a treeflyer if I took a little more time and care with this disguise. This is only a quick change to amuse you.’

  Skipper whacked his tail against the side of the log. ‘Well, you could fool me anytime, shipmate.’

  Mask tossed aside the false tail and ears. Spitting out the two false front teeth, he readjusted his body. He was an otter again.

  ‘Maybe I fooled you, maybe I didn’t. But you’re not fooling me, Skipper of Camp Willow. What do you want me to do?’

  Skipper sat back, folding his paws across his chest. ‘I have a proposition to make to you, brother Mask. Sit still and hear me out.’

  Tsarmina glared through the cell aperture at Gingivere. The imprisoned wildcat sa
t in the darkest part of the cell. His fur was tousled, damp from the walls dewed his paws, his head drooped despairingly. Now and then his eyes would flicker rapidly. The wildcat Queen brought her face close to the bars.

  ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell me all about how those two hedgehogs made their escape. Speak up. You must have heard or seen something – they were in the cells either side of you.’

  Gingivere leapt up, his voice a cracked singsong shout. ‘Hahaha! You let them escape so you can have their bread and water. I knew you wouldn’t give me any. You’re keeping it all for yourself. Oh, I saw you, sneaking along the passage. You let them go so that you could have all that bread and water for yourself. Heeheehee.’

  Tsarmina turned to Cludd. ‘Listen to that. He’s completely crazy.’

  She swept off down the passage. Cludd stayed a moment, looking through the bars. He had never seen a completely crazy wildcat before, although he had seen his mistress dangerously close to that condition once or twice.

  ‘No. bread, no water, she’s keeping it for herself.’ Gingivere continued his insane lament.

  Cludd banged the door with his spear. ‘Quiet in there!’

  ‘Atishoo!’

  The sneeze came as Cludd was turning away. He whirled back. ‘Who did that?’

  Gingivere grabbed a pawful of straw and sneezed into it. ‘Atishoo, choo! Oh I’m sick and dying, sir. The cold and damp down here. Please get me extra rations of bread and water or I’ll die.’

  Cludd rapped the door with his spear again. ‘Enough of that! You get the rations Lady Tsarmina allows. So stop moaning, or I’ll give you something to moan about.’

  As the weasel Captain lumbered off down the passage, another sneeze rang out.

  ‘Atishoo!’

  On the wall above the cell door, two food haversacks hung from a spike driven into the rock. Ferdy and Coggs sat, one in each sack, their heads poking out like two fledgling house martins in their respective nests.

  Coggs reached across, trying to stifle Ferdy’s snout with his paw, but another sneeze rang out.

  ‘Atishoo!’

  Ferdy blinked and rubbed his snout. ‘Sorry sir. This bag has flour in it from the scones, and it’s tickling my sn . . . sn . . . Ashoo!’

  Reaching up, Gingivere lifted his little cellmates down from their hiding place. While there were no guards about they could play and exercise.

  Chibb flew to the window, dropping the latest supplies in. He caught the empty sacks that Gingivere tossed up to him. In the shaft of light the wildcat was looking strangely sane and healthy.

  ‘What news, Chibb?’

  ‘Ahemhem. The Corim have decided that you must soon be rescued, all three of you. How they propose to do it I don’t know yet.’

  Gingivere nodded. ‘I hope they realize that the longer they wait, the more dangerous it becomes for Ferdy and Coggs.’

  Chibb slung the empty sacks around his neck. ‘Ahem, I’m sure they do. At present the message is, keep on the alert and keep up your courage. You are not forgotten.’

  Chibb flew off swiftly. Gaining the woodlands, he paused to perch on a spruce branch as he adjusted the bags about his neck for easier flight.

  Argulor belched dozily and glanced at the robin perched beside him. Chibb gave a jump of surprise, but did not forget his manners.

  ‘Ahem, beg pardon.’ The fat robin darted from the branch like a flame-tipped arrow.

  Argulor shifted his claws. Wearily he dropped his eyelids back into the slumbering position.

  Were the small birds getting faster, or was he getting slower? The eagle dismissed the problem, reasoning that there were still plenty of soldiers in Kotir who were a lot slower than a single robin redbreast.

  A lot tastier, too.

  Dinny and Gonff sat quite still at the edge of the pond as Martin whispered to them, ‘Now, very slowly, look to your left. Do you see the female swan over there? She’s sitting on her nest with her back to us. Right. Don’t look, just take my word for it, in the open water to the other side there’s a big male swan – it’s her mate. He’s not seen us yet, but he’s headed this way and bound to sight us if we stop here, so let’s move away as silently as possible.’

  With great care Gonff let the fish slip back into the water. He cut his fishing line. The three friends moved speedily, ducking behind the rushes with not a second to spare.

  The huge white swan glided by them serenely. He was like a ship in full sail, an awesome spectacle, the snowy white body and half-folded wings complimenting perfectly the muscular serpentine neck column surmounted by a solid orange bill and fierce black eyes.

  Martin shuddered. He thought of how close they had been to death. The male swan was warlike and fearless, absolute monarch of his pond. Any creature who dared trespass upon these waters while his mate sat upon the three new-hatched cygnets in their nest was fated never to see the sunset. The white colossus swept by, continuing his patrol of the pond.

  When he was past, the three friends slipped away. Gonff whispered a silent goodbye to the silver fish in the shallows. ‘We were both lucky that time, matey. Swim free.’

  A respectable distance from the water, Dinny untangled a streamer of duckweed from his paw.

  ‘Boi okey, this’n’s owd granfer near losed a dear liddle mole back thurr. Oi never see’d a skwon afore, gurt feathery burdbag they be, stan’ on moi tunnel.’

  They lunched on apples and bread, supplemented with some cow parsley that Dinny had discovered.

  Blacktooth and Splitnose sighted the pond. They had been running ahead of Scratch after a particularly nasty bout of name-calling. The stoat and ferret had called Scratch a frogwalloper; this seemed to touch some hidden nerve in the weasel, and he took strong objection to the insult. The pair ran off, cackling gleefully as the weasel threw pebbles and earth clods after them.

  ‘Come back here and say that, you cowardy custards. I’ll give you frogwallopers when I get you!’

  Running wide, they approached the pond at a different angle from that of the travellers. Blacktooth and Splitnose whooped with delight.

  ‘Look a river, a river! Truce, Scratch!’

  Scratch joined them, the quarrel temporarily forgotten at the sight of the watery expanse.

  ‘That’s not a river, it’s a pond,’ he pointed out. ‘This is more like it, a good fresh drink, a nice bath for our paws. Look, a swan sitting on a nest. Swan eggs – what a tasty idea!’

  Splitnose was not so sure. ‘Er, don’t you think that bird looks a bit big, Scratch?’

  ‘So what?’ the weasel snorted. ‘There’s three of us and we’ve got spears. I bet swan eggs are lovely.’

  ‘Have you ever eaten one?’ Splitnose asked.

  ‘No, I’ve never even seen one, but I bet they’re very big and good to eat.’

  ‘Well, all right, we’ll back you up. How do you get the eggs?’

  ‘Easy, just stand in the shallows and chuck our spears at the swan until it’s forced to fly away, then we rob the eggs.’

  Buoyed by Scratch’s confidence, they waded into the shallows. The female swan watched them fearlessly. She issued a warning hiss.

  The would-be plunderers were enjoying themselves immensely.

  ‘Ooh aahh. Hey, Blackie, doesn’t this mud feel great when you squelch it with your paws?’ Splitnose called.

  ‘Aye, ’specially after all that running, mate. Just watch this.’ Blacktooth flung his spear. It fell far short of the target.

  Splitnose laughed scornfully, then threw his. It went a little further, but still far short of the swan.

  Scratch sneered contemptuously at their efforts. ‘Huh, you two couldn’t throw a frozen worm and hit the earth. Go and get some stones to fling at her. I can probably wade out that far and stab the bird.’

  The ferret and the stoat waded back to the bank, and ran off to search for missiles.

  Scratch ventured recklessly on until the water was around his middle. There was a crackle of parting rush
es behind him. Scratch turned in the water. The giant male swan blotted out everything in his vision; he did not even get a chance to cry out or lift his spear.

  Scratch was dead before he knew it!

  Splitnose and Blacktooth returned to the water’s edge, their paws full of rocks and earth clods.

  ‘How’ll this little lot do, Scratch?’

  ‘Scratch, where are you?’

  ‘Scratchy-watchy, you old frogwalloper, come out. We know you’re hiding, we can see the rushes moving.’

  The male swan came thundering out of the rushes in half-flight, churning up a bow wave as it hissed like a nest of serpents.

  ‘Yooooaaaaggggghhhh!’

  Only the speed of raw terror and the fact that they were racing away from the pond and its nest saved the lives of the panic-stricken pair.

  ‘Owoowoowoo helpelpelp!’

  The male swan webbed its way up onto the bank, beating its wings wide to the blue sky, hissing out its victory cry – a savage challenge to the distant runners.

  The female settled securely on her babes in the nest. She preened her neck feathers, smiling with just a touch of smugness. Swans never laugh aloud.

  Though they were a fair distance from the pond, Martin and his friends heard the anguished shouts on the breeze.

  ‘Sounds like our followers from Kotir have ruffled someone’s feathers, eh, Din,’ Martin remarked.

  The mole looked grave. ‘Skwons etted ’em, oi uxpect.’

  Gonff placed a paw on his heart and sang slowly,

  ‘A weasel, ferret and a stoat,

  Found a pond but had no boat.

  Now they can’t see the waters from

  The inside of a swan.’

  Tsarmina stood at her high window, watching the squirrels. They had descended from the trees at the woodland edge. With them were two small hedgehogs clad in cooking-pot helmets and blanket cloaks.